Tag Archives: Ozark wild plants

Older people around this area
remember gathering wild greens. Some of those were the wild cresses.

The popular one today is watercress.
It even shows up in gardening catalogs with instructions how to grow it.

Watercress is an alien species brought here long ago. It has spread both by seeds and by cuttings. Yes, nature can do cuttings.

Watercress sometimes seems to be a pest. It forms large mats in quiet areas of six to eight inches of cool water. The taste is always tangy, but gets very bitter and sharp once the plant blooms.

The stems of watercress are brittle
and root at every leaf node. Floods break off stems, carry them downstream and
these root to form new colonies.

Look for watercress in flowing cold
water. I find it in spring fed streams and a wetland across from a spring. It
forms large mats sometimes towering a foot over the water.

The most colorful one blooming now is yellow rocket or winter cress. The rosette of leaves persist through much of the winter and are edible. In spring stems shoot up lined and topped with bright yellow flowers.

Yellow rocket or winter cress sends up numerous stems topped with vivid yellow flowers. This makes a good potherb before it flowers.

These grow in lawns and along roads.
One stretch of my road is lined with yellow rocket and is lovely filled with
the bright color.

Near and in shallow cold water is
the spring cress. Like watercress, spring cress has white flowers.

These are smaller plants, often single stems with an array of flowers at the top. The stem keeps growing so more flowers appear leaving the older ones to make seeds. This plant seems to set seeds and almost disappear like the spring ephemerals.

Spring cress usually has only one stalk. The white is brilliant against the green background. The plant likes its feet wet and grows in boggy areas or shallow water.

Several things are similar about
these cresses. The flowers all have four petals. The leaves are deep green with
ruffled edges. The seed pods are long capsules with many seeds in them. All of
them are edible.

Wild cresses, there are many more
than three, are among many plants found in the mustard family. We grow some
members in our gardens: cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, kohlrabi, kale and
mustards among them.

Wild cresses are best eaten before
they bloom. All of them are peppery any time but add a bit of bitterness when
they bloom. All are nutritious.